RJG Reviews Taken 2

With the World Series standing in the way of our winter dealings getting underway, we here at RJG are forced to find other means of keeping ourselves busy other than baseball. You might be thinking, 'Shouldn't you get a job?' Maybe, but, frankly, the government should just give me money, food, healthcare, and housing, so I'm not going to do something they should be doing anyway.

I will go see movies however, and recently I sat through a private screening of Taken 2. It wasn't really a private screening, but because it was a matinee on a weekday, it felt like it.

The movie begins with a series of scenes that don't really make sense but set up the premise of the movie: Liam Neeson and his no longer annoying ex-wife are taken while vacationing together in Istanbul.

You might wonder, why are Liam Neeson and his no longer annoying ex-wife vacationing together? What about her loving, devoted, super-wealthy second husband? Well, don't worry about it. While you never see him, you're assured they're separated. They had a family trip planned which he cancelled last second, and Lenore (just remembered her name) is frustrated because all the communication is through lawyers now. This is somewhat weird since they're just separated, not divorcing, and had apparently planned a trip to China together, but apparently that was not done ex parte.

It doesn't matter though. Kim has a boyfriend now. That also doesn't matter, but the script writers decided we should know about it anyway.

What matters is they're all in Istanbul, hanging out, rekindling old flames, when the father of Marco from Trepoje shows up with like a million nameless bad guys in track suits and old man sweaters, and kidnaps Neeson and 'Lenny'. Oh yeah, she doesn't mind being called 'Lenny' at any point in this movie, which I found an odd character departure. Thing is though, you're supposed to like her in this movie, otherwise you wouldn't care that she gets kidnapped.

With both Neeson and Lenny in the hands of Albanian thugs, Neeson uses what looks like an iPod Shuffle to call Kim, who, it turns out, is quite adept at handling heavy munitions, running along rooftops, and navigating a foreign urban landscape with no clear reference points.

She gets a gun to Neeson (Brian is it?) and the movie finally gets underway, as Neeson kills a bunch of people and gets in some car chases with his daughter driving the car and him shooting.

The best part of this movie was the Skyfall trailer that was shown right before it. That movie looks AMAZING!

Taken 2 will satisfy your desire to see minor characters in whose destruction you're not invested get destroyed, but that's about it. A solid rental if you've been smoking pot all day and are in no position to process dialogue, plot, linear thinking generally, or stable cinematography (thank you Bourne trilogy for ruining every fight sequence ever). But seriously, go see this Skyfall trailer. It's worth it.